


places we won't walk

by tidalove



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Post-Canon, Walks On The Beach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:06:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26877901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tidalove/pseuds/tidalove
Summary: The end of the world has passed, and Aziraphale decides to go sightseeing.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	places we won't walk

What Aziraphale remembered most about Hell was its utter lack of warmth. Every surface was cold, damp, repulsive. He’d shouldered on and tried to incorporate the swagger of Crowley into his every step, finding it became more and more natural as time went on. (The rubber duck still made him cackle.) But still—the cold penetrated you. It was a vast expanse of cold that permeated the very fabric of spacetime.

And so it astounded him that at the Ritz now, everything around Aziraphale exploded in warmth: the light glittering from the chandeliers, the sounds of bustling waiters passing by, the bubbles of champagne now filling his veins, and most miraculously, Crowley, sitting beside him as casually as ever. An elbow draped over the back of his seat, a long leg extended under the creamy tablecloth. Leather hugging his arms and hanging from his torso, dark sunglasses perpetually perched on his nose. 

“Angel,” said Crowley, and Aziraphale started, realizing he’d been staring.

“Y-yes, I was just about to ask,” he floundered, waving around the fork with cake crumbs still sticking to the tines, “er—why  _ did _ you decide not to go to Alpha Centauri?”

Crowley’s face went slack for a moment, and Aziraphale worried he’d said something wrong. The moment passed; a small smile curved the ends of Crowley’s lips. “It was nothing,” he said. “Thought Earth was more beautiful.”

* * *

And so it was that Aziraphale sat on his sofa, leafing through pages of a photography book and a travel guide at once, because for some reason the thought of the white cliffs of Dover, the isles of Scilly, the flatlands of the Somerset Levels, filled him with a warmth he’d not experienced before. Maybe it was the thought of simply doing nothing after the hectic events of the past few days; maybe it was the thought of seeing people again (not that he didn’t see them every day in his bookshop, but he treated any potential customers with a special sort of disdain); maybe it was the fact that finally he would no longer need to worry himself over the demands from Above; or maybe it was the thought of sitting in the passenger seat of Crowley’s Bentley.

Leather-bound books rested in stacks on Aziraphale’s desk. He placed them on the ground, stack by stack, and swept a feather duster over the surface of the desk. Aziraphale pulled out a large paper map of England from his shelf and patted it flat on the desk. After circling each destination neatly with his fountain pen, he dialed Crowley.

Crowley picked up on the first ring. “Aziraphale?” he said, sounding vaguely worried—though why he would be, Aziraphale couldn’t imagine. 

“Crowley, my dear, I’ve had a lovely idea,” Aziraphale said cheerfully. “Why don’t we go sightseeing?”

A pause. “To where?”

“Oh, you know—around. I’ve got it all mapped out.” Aziraphale chuckled. “Mapped out—get it?”

Crowley sighed. “Yes, angel. I get it.”

* * *

When Crowley showed up with his Bentley outside, he was staring at the sign of the bookshop almost in wonder. In Aziraphale’s right hand he grasped a tartan duffel bag of books, jam, and wine (he found it was acceptable to miracle out bread and butter knives; and the books were quite obviously encased in a fluid-proof sealant for the time being, an angelic sort of WD-40), and in his left hand fluttered the very large map.

With his hands full, he miracled a sign onto the door declaring “CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE”. The air was brisk and cool as Aziraphale stepped outside. The handles of the door were still dotted with dew, the windows fogged.

Crowley stood, leaning against the hood of his car, looking at Aziraphale from under his sunglasses. He pulled open the trunk of his car and Aziraphale set his belongings in the felt interior, but for the map still clutched in his left hand. The demon took it, unfolded it, and furrowed his brows.

“We’re going to Glasgow?” Crowley asked incredulously.

“Well, later. That’s a stop on the trip. We’ve never been! Can you believe?”

“You do know that Google Maps exists?”

“What maps?”

“Never mind. This is alright. I never learned how to navigate with these little lines, though.” Crowley squinted down at the map, which was, indeed, crisscrossed with lines. “Didn’t know purple from blue.”

“I’m sure it can’t be that hard. It’s basic literacy.”

“This is a long trip.”

“It’s not as though you have anything better to—oh dear, I forgot! Your plants! They’ll wither if you’re away!”

Crowley looked up at him, gaze intense. “Oh, they wouldn’t dare.”

A jolt of apprehension shot through Aziraphale. He sent encouragement the way of the plants in the form of celestial telepathy and found only a desperate cry for help in response. “My dear, you should be less hard on them.”

“They’re plants, angel. They do their job.”

The sun hadn’t illuminated all of London yet; the buildings they coasted by were only half-lit, towers of grey capped with gold. A healthy smattering of Londoners dotted the pavements. Crowley was going at nearly half his normal speed. For a moment Aziraphale thought of telling him that it was alright to speed up, but he was gazing outside through his dark sunglasses, shoulders relaxed, leaning back against his seat. Aziraphale realized that perhaps Crowley had felt the near loss of the Earth just as heavily—that the events of the past few days had affected him equally.

Possibly more, if his visible anxiety was anything to go by. He cast too-nonchalant glances at Aziraphale every so often, once doing it just as a traffic light was turning red and prompting an unholy screech from the angel himself.

He wondered what was motivating these new glances and flashes of concern. They’d not talked about it, the night at Crowley’s flat. They’d not talked about anything, really—both too exhausted to dissect the events of the past day, only forming a sort of half-made plan to switch bodies and trust in Agnes Nutter. But Aziraphale had not argued when Crowley took his hand in his own and led him onto the bus. And he’d held on for the rest of the ride, sat closer to him than usual.

One of Crowley’s hands now rested on the steering wheel; another rested on the gear stick. Briefly, Aziraphale considered reaching out to take the hand in his, then quickly quashed that train of thought. He busied himself with the map instead. 

“Where to first?” Crowley asked, perhaps taking the paper’s mad fluttering as a sign that Aziraphale might proceed to give directions, as any responsible occupant of the passenger seat would.

“Oh—er—Dover,” Aziraphale blurted, flustered. It had not occurred to him that, in fact, the purple and blue lines were largely indistinguishable to him as well. But Dover seemed the closest of any of his small black circles; so to Dover it was.

“White Cliffs?”

“Of course. I’ve always wanted to, you know—see the ocean and all. When I’m not worried about helping Moses split it.”

“That wasn’t you, was it?” 

“Well, it was God, I suppose, but I had to keep Moses free from indecency beforehand,” Aziraphale sighed. “She wouldn’t have assisted otherwise, Gabriel warned. And splitting the sea is hard, my dear. Even for myself.”

“Is it?”

“Like simultaneously emptying a very large number of bottles of wine.”

Crowley grimaced.

Fortunately, he seemed to have an idea of where to go. He drove down the A2 at a speed much more uncomfortably Crowleyesque than before. Aziraphale clutched the side of the car interior nervously and scoured the map for their position.

“This map business—it’s just finding a line from where you are to where you want to go, right?”

“I think so. What if you can’t find the line?”

“Perhaps you draw one?”

Crowley looked at him.

“I’m only joking,” said Aziraphale hastily, though he had not been.

Finally he found the appropriate line and discovered in glee that they were already driving along it—following the A2 would lead to Dover uninterrupted. Satisfied, he reported this information to Crowley and then folded up the map compactly again, sliding it into his coat pocket, where it stayed for the rest of the trip.

* * *

The sea was bluer than blue. A deep azure that stretched over the horizon, cutting cleanly into the bottom of the sky, white sprays punctuating each wave. At once it seemed vast and expansive and tantalizingly close.

The air, too, was filled with salt and cold and mist. When Crowley stood outside and stretched, pulling himself out into a remarkably snakey shape, the breeze mangled his hair and his leather jacket flapped behind him. Aziraphale extended a hand into the air, breathed in deeply, felt how human his body was—how refreshed it felt after just one deep inhale of this untouched air.

“Angels miss out,” Aziraphale sighed.

“Demons miss out,” Crowley echoed.

They looked at each other.

Aziraphale felt less and less like an upstairs-sanctioned angel each day, but he had never quite spoken that sentiment aloud. Even now, said half-jokingly, it felt like blasphemy, a chill up his spine that had nothing to do with the deliciously cold air rushing past him.

“Upstairs are missing out on you, angel,” Crowley said, breaking the silence.

Aziraphale willed himself very hard not to blush, and may have overdone it as he felt his face approaching a shade of humanly unattainable white. He looked away. “They want nothing to do with me.”

“I thought the sentiment was mutual.”

“It is. But it’s still strange.”

They walked down to the cafe by the sea. Aziraphale ate a cranberry scone and Crowley purchased a soda, of all things. “Those hurt to drink,” Aziraphale informed him. He was met with a snort.

“They’re like bubbly champagne, angel,” Crowley retorted. “But there’s no alcohol. And they taste quite nice. Popped up in my fridge when Adam remade the world.”

When they traversed down the hill to the shore, there were other people walking on the beach besides the two of them. Two women with a dog, a great big husky; a family with screeching children; an old couple, perched on a bench. Several people walked alone.

The cliffs stretched out behind them, grand and white. It was a sort of warm whiteness, dotted with dark spots; Aziraphale felt tempted to run his fingers along the cliff side, collect chalk in his palms, walk along the entire length of the cliffs. But the beach only flanked a small stretch of the actual white cliffs; beyond that, rocks lay scattered along the cliff base, providing only a meager sense of a path through the water. 

When they reached the end of the beach, the lapping waves nearing their shoes, Aziraphale huffed. “What a shame. I wanted to see the rest of it.”

Crowley looked at him, raised his eyebrows. “We could.”

And miraculously, he parted the sea in front of them, just the half-meter or so of water encroaching upon the cliff base, but even so, a full path, dry as could be. Aziraphale tried not to betray his surprise.

“After you,” Crowley said, waving his arm in a faux courtsey.

“Why—why, thank you,” he stammered, and went ahead into the path Crowley had forged. He reached out and placed a palm onto the cliff as he was walking, and when he turned it over, it was streaked with white. 

Crowley kept the waves at bay for a while longer; the lapping water would close to the rocks behind them, then part in front of them, and be kept on standby along whichever stretch they were walking. The ocean was rhythmic and calm, its noise rushing and subsiding, punctuated only by seagulls’ overhead cries, and the shouts of the children behind them, playing on the beach. Even those became more and more distant as the two meandered away from the shore.

Crowley’s glances were becoming less frequent, Aziraphale observed. But still there. Markedly more so than before the near-apocalypse. 

“What did happen with the fire?” he ventured.

Crowley blinked; the water being pulled from the shore faltered and some splashed forward, just missing Aziraphale’s shoes. Regaining his composure, Crowley looked over at him. “It was all burning,” he said. “The whole shop. I went inside to look—”

“You did  _ what _ ?”

“You know I wouldn’t burn. Anyway, I went inside to look and you weren’t there. Tried to call for you, too. I thought someone killed you.”

“Oh, dear. No, I simply—I didn’t prepare my body properly and some fool pushed me into—well, I suppose I walked into it of my own volition, but anyway it was his fault—the gateway to Heaven. They had asked me to fight.”

“No one killing you?”

“No one.” Aziraphale smiled, despite himself.

“I’ll murder whoever pushed you in.”

“Oh, don’t be silly—he was the gentleman with the finger.”

“Ah…him. Wouldn’t mind murdering him.”

“Crowley!” Aziraphale admonished him. He glanced up.

Crowley was still looking at him, through the side of his sunglasses. He diverted his gaze as Aziraphale met his eyes.

“You know you don’t have to wear those. The ocean is a lovely blue.”

“I know,” Crowley said briskly.

They walked in silence for a few more moments, the waves approaching notably closer to their feet than before. 

“I just mean that—being down in Hell, it was very…different. From how you are.” Aziraphale swallowed. “You know, you’re—more pleasant.”

Crowley snorted. “And I thought you had high standards.”

“I do!” Aziraphale insisted. “And—truly, Crowley—it was so cold down there. You’re not cold at all.”

The waves splashed over their feet, drenching the bottom of Aziraphale’s pant legs. Crowley stopped and looked at him. “Was cold in Heaven, too.”

“Well, that’s because of the air-conditioning. They just got an upgrade.”

Seconds passed, and Crowley took off his sunglasses. He put them into the pocket of his leather jacket. His golden eyes gleamed in the sunlight, and Aziraphale almost wanted to look away for their intensity, and also to remedy the seawater currently soaking through his socks.

“You know what I mean. Almost worse than Hell. At least everyone agrees—no one wants to be in Hell. But in Heaven they all act like it’s the best place to be and then—then they throw you around like that, you know in Hell they’d at least give you a trial?”

“Yes, they did give me a trial—”

“No, they gave  _ me _ a trial, even though I am—objectively—and proudly—a much worse person than you, angel.”

“Well, of course  _ Heaven _ doesn’t give trials. They just decide.” Aziraphale wrung his hands in front of him. “That’s how it’s always been. You know that.”

Crowley flinched and looked away. Aziraphale cleared the water around them and miracled the saltwater from their garments. 

“And it doesn’t matter anymore,” Aziraphale said more gently. “They’ll both leave us alone now. I think. Anyway, if they do decide to bother us again—we can deal with that when it comes.”

“So you’re admitting you don’t have to be so insufferably good anymore.”

“Not so insufferably uptight, I would say,” Aziraphale sighed. “And you, not so insufferably chaotic.”

“That wasn’t even Hell-mandated. I was already their worst demon.” Crowley crossed his arms. “They wanted me to go around tempting individual people!”

“As if you didn’t,” Aziraphale scoffed, and turned pink before he could wrestle his features back into a politely indifferent mask. He looked up; Crowley was flushed, too, unexpectedly. “Let’s—let’s head back,” he stammered, and this time it was Aziraphale who parted the waters in front of them.

* * *

The Bentley blasted Queen as it shot down the road. Both sides of the road were covered by lush foliage, sprawling leaves forming a canopy over the path, long grasses sprouting from the ground.

For once Aziraphale did not mind the loud music; it distracted him from his own thoughts, which for now, were less concerned with where they were going and more concerned with his extremely embarrassing half-confession in front of Crowley earlier.

But he was filled with the thought of the sea parting for him as he walked, without him having to lift a finger. It was well past noon now; sunlight streamed through the windows and swathed the interior of the car. They were on their way to their next destination, though perhaps they’d have to stop at an inn before arriving. 

Crowley had a hand on the wheel and a hand resting on the glovebox between himself and the passenger seat. In a blinding moment of uncertainty, Aziraphale reached out and placed his hand over Crowley’s. It was cool and soft, and when Crowley turned his palm over and laced his fingers through Aziraphale’s, it was a warmth unlike any other.

**Author's Note:**

> Short work to get myself back into writing—it's been years since I've posted here. I hope you enjoyed it. I might add onto it later! We'll see how long this gets. Sorry if anything is inaccurate! Please leave constructive criticism :)


End file.
